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Ricoh Switzerland Ltd.phone.: +41 (0) 844 360 360 | fax: +41 (0) 844 360 361 | www.ricoh.ch/en
Success Story – Swiss Federal Railways (SBB)
Ricoh takes over Managed Print Services for SBB
SBB’s history as one of the world’s greatest rail companies dates back over 100 years. The company has contributed significantly towards shaping the quality of life and the competitiveness of Switzer-land. Pioneering spirit, reliability and innovation are still some of the company’s strengths today. These strengths are essential if SBB wishes to surpass the increasingly challenging expectations of its custom-ers and continue to develop. This also includes process improvements and cost reductions thanks to a modern printer infrastructure. As part of a WTO tender, Ricoh was selected under strict conditions to meet these challenges.
The project involved standardising more
than 260 SBB points of sale, geographical
ly distributed across the whole of Switzer
land, within a period of less than four
months. More than 2,250 machines were
rolled out during ongoing operations and
have been in operation since 1 June 2016.
“SBB is a challenging customer,” confirm
Daniel Mettler, Project Manager, and Ilona
Szekely, who is responsible for the entire
rollout coordination at Ricoh Switzerland.
The supplier selection process for SBB was
extremely precise and detailed, while the
demands were strict and rigorous. In order
to meet these demands, some of the pro
cesses at Ricoh were restructured specifi
cally for SBB. After several years of experi
ence of Managed Print Services, SBB knew
exactly what it wanted and needed – a fully
managed print process from cost contain
ment, server and application management
to final output.
According to Daniel Dutoit, Project Man
ager with overall responsibility for the SBB
print environment, SBB set three key objec
tives for its new print server management:
1. To improve the operational processes
2. To increase userfriendliness
3. To reduce printing costs overall
In order to reach these goals, SBB was
looking for a partner that could offer
every thing from a single source: from print
server management through to application
management and queue management.
The partner also needed to offer a perfect
ly and professionally organised nationwide
service with short res ponse times, and be
able to replace the existing print fleet with
out disruption to ongoing operations. The
ideal partner would also offer a very struc
tured service management. It would be in
a position to provide clear and concise re
ports and recommendations on process im
provements and cost optimi sations. During
the tender process, SBB put great empha
sis on team work and interaction with the
supplier. For this very reason, the SBB proj
ect team visited Ricoh in Wallisellen a num
ber of times in order for both teams to get
to know each other.
Ricoh was finally offered the contract. As
mentioned, the win depended as much on
the team work as the capacity to seamless
ly transfer a complex operation – such as
that at SBB – from an old to a new supplier
on a very tight schedule.
“A rollout – which we refer to as a “tran
sition” at Ricoh – is simple. It just requires
“Ricoh has implemented a very profes-
sionally organised and pragmatically
executed rollout, creating a good basis
for future collaboration.“Daniel Dutoit
Project Manager with overall responsibility for the SBB printer environment
“Besides the quality of the data, team-
work with the customer is almost as
important.“Ilona Szekely
Head of FrontEnd SolutionsRicoh Switzerland Ltd.
© SBB CFF FFS
Ricoh Switzerland Ltd.phone.: +41 (0) 844 360 360 | fax: +41 (0) 844 360 361 | www.ricoh.ch/en
good planning, excellent communication,
efficient teamwork and flexibility,” says Ilo
na Szekely with a touch of humour. “A roll
out can actually be compared to a surgical
procedure: It is not something you would
do voluntarily, however in capable hands
it can be completed quickly. What’s more,
the patient should feel much healthier than
before.”
In order to minimise the waste while also
preserving the environment, Ricoh imple
ments a justintime and lean manufactur
ing process. Devi ces are preordered at the
factory in Japan and are largely preconfig
ured before they land in Europe. Addition
al adjustments, such as the regionspecific
language or the exact number of cassettes,
are applied in Amsterdam before they are
sent to the local staging area for the rele
vant customer. Every machine in this area is
specially aligned with the customer’s indi
vidual requirements, and the correspond
ing software is installed and tested. In the
case of SBB, different software modules
were installed on the printer, depending
on the machine’s location. In each case,
the aim was for all machines to have plug
and play functionality in order to minimise
disruption to the customer during ongoing
operation.
This entire chain of different processes
needed to be planned meticulously in ad
vance. Together with SBB, the exact data
was defined for each of the 2,250 plus ma
chines. This not only involved defining data
such as the IP or MAC address and other
important properties that were important
for integrating into the SBB network, but
also the physical properties; for example
whether a crane was needed as the buil
ding entrance was too narrow for a ma
chine to pass through. Once the machinery
process from the construction of a machine
through to its installation was under way,
everything needed to be ready: delivery
trucks, fitters, technicians and the custom
er’s IT. Not forgetting the users! Everything
took place during normal daytoday busi
ness operations, therefore it was essential
that the SBB employees were informed in
advance and were involved.
“Besides the quality of the data, teamwork
with the customer is almost as important.
It was a pleasure for my team and I to work
with the staff at SBB – even when it came
down to smaller items, such as the offer
of a coffee or the generous parking alloca
tion,” acknowledges Ilona Szekely.
It took less than four months to integrate
more than 2,250 machines during day
today operations at SBB, while dein
stalling the old fleet the same time; three
teams worked in parallel every day. A to
tal of 63,360 km were travelled and even
the most remote train station within the
SBB network was included in the project.
During this time there was not a single ac
cident and all the machines were supplied
correctly configured for their locations.
Throughout the entire rollout, just seven
cases of minor damage were reported,
which were immediately rectified.
What happens now? Daniel Dutoit com
ments: “Ricoh has implemented a very
professionally organised and pragmatical
ly executed rollout, creating a good basis
for future collaboration. The improved
connection to the service systems via au
tomatic interfaces by the end of 2016 will
make the interaction between the support
organisations at SBB and Ricoh even more
efficient. The Print2Me function (which en
ables a user to «pull» his printout from any
device), which has been rolled out across
virtually all machines, promises to increase
efficiency even further and improve the
availability of the machines – not forgetting
the amount of paper that will be saved!”
Ricoh takes over Managed Print Services for SBB
© SBB CFF FFS
More informations on the Swiss FederalRailways (SBB) : www.sbb.ch/en